Home
by Crimson Falcons
Summary: Post-war. Because retribution and redemption go hand in hand- in which Uchiha Sasuke understands what made him fall in love with his wife.
1. a

**Standard disclaimer applies: I don't own Naruto, blah blah blah. You all know the drill.**

This is a result of being bombarded with heart-wrenching feels and being canon-ised. I'm still getting over the fact that they got married. So um, yea.

**Prompt: Without you, by Ashes Remain.**

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**a.**

He starts to see her for what she is, for who she has become.

It's hard, sometimes, because when he closes his eyes he sees her crying, eyes squeezed shut in pain. But not always; sometimes he sees her smile, and her laugh tinkles in his ears and his fingers seem to relax by the mere sound that echoes in his mind. He likes it better this way; he likes the peace that floods him.

She's still bright, rose and moss all mixed into one. Her happiness overlaps his own and it confuses him, how she simply gives without asking for anything in return. But he tries to show her what he means, what he _feels_, as best as he can in the only way he knows, and somehow she understands him the way she understands the lines on his palm, the bruises on his body and the scars on his soul.

Some days he looks at her when she's washing the dishes, the sleeves of her red shirt pushed up and arms buried elbow deep in soap water, or when she's bent over the flower bed in their new home, knees folded underneath her, pink hair flattened against her neck, and it makes something in his chest flutter when she turns to see him there and smiles, eyes crinkling around the corners like they always do.

He has to blink and suck the air deep inside his lungs to not collapse in front of her when she does that. And he finds it strange how his feet always lead him to where she is, in daybreak and in darkness, to find sanctuary in her kind words and soft whispers.

So when she curls into him for warmth on winter nights, he holds her tight and allows himself to be weakened, to be sheltered from the nightmares that have plagued him for as long as he can remember. His face finds its way to her shoulder where her shirt hangs loose, her pale skin cool against his clammy forehead, pink hair tickling his cheeks, and he sighs, breathing in her scent and letting it engulf him in a cocoon.

"You okay, Sasuke-kun?" her voice is muffled and deep, eyes clouded with sleep, the green pigment in them dark and moist, and he almost laughs to himself at how uncannily perceptive she can be.

"Go back to sleep."

She mumbles something incoherent, adjusts herself in his arms, and lays her face right on his chest, so close to his heart that he knows she can hear it.

"You too, Sasuke-kun."

He closes his eyes then and focuses on the sound of her breathing. He knows that he still has a long way to go and fractured bonds to rebuild but maybe, just maybe, his journey won't be as hard as he had thought it to be.

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My sisters say this nearly made them cry. Is it true, because I'd like to know.

Criticism is always welcomed. Drop by a review to tell me what you think.


	2. b

**Prompt: If you see Kay, by The Script.**

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**b.**

"Ne Sasuke-kun, what do you think?"

Perched on the high stool, she stands with a large paint brush in one hand and a plastic bucket in the other. There's a big chunk of wallpaper pooled by her ankles, splattered with hues of crème, robin-blue and pink, but the walls are bare and she has her eyebrows scrunched up in indecision, lips plucked up into a pout.

For a minute he just stares at her, eyes unblinking, and he thinks- he's almost sure he just _heard_ his mother's voice again. And suddenly he's pulled deep within his memories again, those colored with sunlight and laughter, the story of a little boy who was adored by his ka-san and loved unconditionally by his brother. They flicker in his eyes like a film, images exploding in his corneas like tiny bursts of lightning that flash a blinding white in the darkness; they leave him feeling hollow, and he's so tempted to flee like he always does, black shirt sashaying in his wake.

_But._

"Sasuke-kun?"

Her fingers dangle in the space close to his face, uncertain, hesitant. He closes his eyes and leans into her hand.

"Green," he whispers as he looks at her, and she tilts her head a little to the side in confusion, so he clears his throat and clarifies.

"For the walls."

She turns and squints her eyes, scrutinizing, the wheels in her head spinning like clockwork. Then suddenly she smiles and looks up at him, emerald eyes grinning.

"I guess that could work."

She's begins to talk animatedly, her features instantly brightened by the prospects of the future, but he can't hear her anymore, can't see her anymore; all he feels is the scorching heat of his guilt, all encompassing and suffocating, and he has to clutch the door-frame to keep his face straight.

And when lucidity returns, it returns like a punch, a million sounds blaring in his ears as if a television had been flipped to a maximum volume. She's still standing there, pink lips pulled into a large smile, eyes big and bright as they have always been since the time they began trying to understand themselves and the world they had been thrust into. And he realizes he admires her endurance, how she takes it all in stride, all the pain, the suffering; she still laughs, while he thinks he doesn't even remember how to anymore.

But when she suddenly twirls on her feet and stands on her toes to peck him on the cheek, he blinks out of whatever madness was swirling in his mind and looks at her, really looks at her like he's been trying to ever since the war ended and she started healing his wounds, and thinks: _why_?

"Lunch?" there's no tremble in her voice, no gaping hole in the void that's stares back at him, unabashed. He lets her guide him through their house like she had guided him through the tunnel of insanity he had submerged himself in for more than a decade of his life, and he might not have crossed it all yet, but he's not scared. Because this time he knows he's not alone. The hand clasped in his attests to that fact.

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It's hard keeping Sasuke in character and writing such a major fluff thing. Seriously.

Review?


	3. c

A little insight into his head.

**Prompt: Nightcall, by London Grammar.**

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**c.**

She finds him standing in the rubble of what was his childhood. The history of his clan, once so majestic, burned to ashes, mixed with the debris of broken houses and cracked walls. He can still smell the smoke lingering in the air, and the wet grass reflect rainbows in the sky, remnants of morning dew clinging to long green blades.

They move to the cemetery next, where tombstones cast long shadows across dead grass. He closes his eyes and the blood is there again, swirling around in his consciousness, making his breath clog in his lungs. He can feel his palms turning cold and clammy, and as the wind picks up again, he hears their screams ringing in his ears, begging for release.

Obito had said that his brother had been ready to kill everyone- their parents, their relatives, the woman he loved- but he couldn't bring himself to end the life of a mere seven year old boy who would one day lay rest to his anguished soul. But Sasuke still fails to see any of that; all he sees is the burden his brother had to shoulder all his life, the spilt blood he had to stomach. Itachi was a boy of peace, and he had risked _everything_ to prevent his city from bathing in carnage, even if it meant exterminating his own kind; Sasuke knows he would have never been able to do what his brother had done all those years ago.

Something itches the corners of his eyelids, scalding hot and burning. He looks up the towards the graying sky, blinks at the clouds gathering overhead, and wonders if the rain will wash it all away this time.

She comes to stand in line with him, in front of thousands of chipped graves where his family lies, a blot of colour in a mass of inky black and fading gray, and he wonders what they must be thinking now, seeing her standing by his side, a ray of spring in a black and white world. He knows his mother would have liked her kindness, his brother would have admired her honesty, and perhaps his father would have acknowledged her courage and skill, her determination and her strength.

Bending to her knees, she clasps her hands, closes her eyes and sends a short prayer while he watches her from under hooded eyes and jaded irises. Her dark lashes fan over her cheeks, tangling at the ends as they curve upwards. When she stands, she has to cranes her neck to look up at him.

"It's over," her breath floats between them as white mist, mingling with the smell of an approaching storm. "Let's go home."

He buries his hands in the pockets of his jacket and takes a deep breath in and let's it rest there till he can feel the scent of his people seeping into his cells. The first drop of rain lands on his nose, splashing into his eyes and down his jaw, and he knows it's time to leave. On the other side of the hill, the Hokage mountain looks down on Konoha, the faces of their ancestry etched in stone, and beyond it stand the structures of the future.

The city his brother had died protecting had already begun healing from the aftermath of the calamity it had seen. If Itachi had been here to see it, Sasuke knows he would have been proud.

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A special thanks to all those who liked this story, and the reviews are really encouraging.

Plus I got more than two thousand views in three days, _yikes!_


	4. d

SATs are killing me. A'level is killing me.

I need a vacation, badly. Cue the tears.

**Prompt: Dark on me, by Starset**

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**d.**

She's no longer the mumbling mess she used to be, he realizes, no more insecure in her abilities. Her hands are warm when they heal, soothing the nerves behind his eyes, and he feels it flow through him, her chakra, strong and confident and knowing, moving to places he will never see, fixing what's broken.

He stares at her when she closes her eyes and focuses, green light illuminating her features, drenching them in halo, and it feels so surreal, this form of intimacy they share under the blanket of uninterrupted darkness. Blood pools down his calf and falls to the wooden floor, its pitter patter the only sound in the blank silence. He clamps down on the shallow cut on his thigh and holds it down, ignoring the warmth of his blood underneath his fingertips and how it throbs, waves of pain traveling in pulses to his spine where they all gathers again and burst in a flash of blinding light that explode in his temples.

She pauses and the light dissipates from under her hands. They're engulfed in the darkness again.

"That should hold it while I mend your leg," her voice resounds from somewhere in the void, low and soft, and he can almost picture her looking up at him from under her lashes, green eyes feral and neon-bright. He nods into the darkness and hears the rustle of her clothes as she moves higher on her folded legs, fingers searching for his wounds in the inky blankness. His bloody hand moves on its own accord and guides her to the gash on his limb. The green glow returns, her mop of cropped pink hair right under his nose, and he thinks of what's inside there; her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, he sometimes pictures opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts, because he hates to admit that he doesn't know what goes around in there anymore. He hates the fact that he can't predict her movements, or understand what pulls her in when she's staring blankly outside the kitchen window- he_ hates_ that he doesn't know her anymore. Detests it.

Something clogs in his throat and he looks away from her and focuses on the moving shadows on the walls that dance with the moonlight. The skin on his leg is burning, the nerves behind his eyes are burning; even the darkness seems blurry to him now.

She's looking up at him now- he can feel the weight of her stare, curious, questioning.

"Does your arm still hurt, Sasuke-kun?"

It makes him clench his jaw, and he's tempted to lie and keep up the facade that's been prancing around their room like a fat pink elephant, but he's tired; every cell in his body aches, every pore cries in pain, and he just wants to fall asleep and never wake up again.

So when she leans up to heal his eyes again, his head falls down to its place on the juncture of her neck and shoulder, nestled in the warmth that relieves the pressure from his ocular nerves, and nods lightly, releasing a shuddering breath against the base of her ear. He feels her tremble beneath him, feels the energy course through him when her hands- _her surgical hands that give life while his always seem to take it away_\- find the burn on his shoulder and work on it, soothing the scalded skin that itched and-

_Why?_

No sound infiltrates the all-encompassing ebony veil. He closes his eyes and tries to stay awake.

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Yes, he does not know her anymore because of the years he spent away. No, he is not a mind-reader, so he's obviously in doubt. And by arm she means the prosthetic he will get soon (I hope).

Sometimes I want to rip these two into smithereens and build them both again from scratch, just so they're no longer simply characters on paper.

And a big thank you to all those who reviewed and added **Home** to their favourite's list. I can't PM anyone because I have no time to breathe these days, neither at home or at school (SOMANYFATBOOKS and OHMYGODTHEHORROR), and any free period I do have is spent writing this, hunched over the screen of my ancient S1 like a druggie. Not a pretty picture, trust me (_shudders_).

ANYWAY, do leave a review to tell me what you think.


	5. e

**Busy week. But on a brighter note, I'm finally nineteen!**

**Gotta love birthday months.**

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**e**

He realizes he's always been running, chasing one thing after the other, neglecting what mattered more; it's always been a subject of priorities for him, and somehow he always chose the wrong ones.

He tells himself that he'll stay for good this time. That he'll make it work.

Up ahead the village gates rise over the tree line, illuminated against the harsh glare of the descending sun, red as the crimson sky above them. He passes through them without pausing and immediately expands his senses to find her and he pins it, her chakra signal, glowing green and pink and steady, merging shyly with his own, almost as if calling out to him.

They're sitting in Ichiraku, sipping on broth and the warmth that engulfs them. He can hear Naruto's boisterous laughter blocks away, rising an octave over every other sound the village makes as it closes itself for the day, can feel Kakashi's calm inundate the streets as he approaches the ramen shop, but most of all he can sense her presence, tranquil as the morning light he wakes up to during his travels, and his muscles loosen as the feel of belonging floods him, like as if all that hardcore tension has finally left him and he can be in peace again. His footsteps are silent when he lands, his cloak floating in the cold evening air, and for a moment he's almost excited to be back and-

What he sees makes him see red.

She laughing brighter than he's seen her laugh for a while now, grinning to a man with choppy brown hair and curious eyes. Kakashi looks at him from the corner of his eye, the glint in them warning him to reign his rage. But he doesn't care, not when there is some leeching washed out shinobi sitting so close to her.

"Bastard," Naruto pulls him down next to himself at the end of the table, fingers digging into his flesh to stop him from doing something he knows he will not regret later, "so glad you could make it."

She looks up at him them, mouth slacking around the corners with something he doesn't understand, fingers curling around her bowl almost hesitantly and he knows she's surprised because he has always returned to her in the shadow of the night while she slept, his arm curling around her form to pull her in towards him, to know he's alive and there and not dreaming.

And, he reflects bitterly, always left her the same way too.

He's in his seat before she can get up to greet him, and as he slides on the barstool he can feel her eyes on him, those green irises cat-like under the glow of the lanterns that line the walls. A bowl is placed in front him, steam condensing in front of his face as he folds his hands and hides his grimace when the noise flows through his ears again. And he's suddenly fighting the urge to grab her and fist his hands into her clothes and smell the scent of his skin, to hold her close as she runs her fingers through his hair and curls her hands by the base of his neck and plants her cheek on his forehead to let him know that she won't ever let to, that she'll always be there when he comes back because she's his home now, his beacon to guide him through the terrors of his past and the uncertainty of his future.

The tense silence that follows is suffocating, and Sasuke has to flex his hands to stop them from trembling in fatigue. Naruto glances at him with a shrewd perception that makes the irritation bubble in his throat. He tries to quell his anger by pressing his fingertips to the scalding ceramic bowl.

"Sakura-san, I'm still in love with you."

There are things that happened simultaneously, he reflects later, events that occurred in the same time frame. The chaos that follows is instant: Naruto chokes on his noodles, but Sasuke barely sees that, barely sees Kakashi moving to stop him, barely sees the unnamed shinobi look up at him beyond her pink head and gulp in fear and back up in terror before the sound of a thousand chirping birds screech in his ears and the electricity pulses through his veins, charging his cells and burning his thoughts to a single discernible voice that echoes in his cranium like a mantra.

But before he can melt the skin off his face he sees her, those cat-like eyes widening in horror and dread as he plunges his hand so close to her shoulder that he can feel the heat of her skin prick the flesh of his undamaged hand and see the blue light flickering in the translucent green of her irises; they look so strangely beautiful, the colors dissolving into one another, that for a moment he forgets everything and just stares, at that mesh of neon blurs and memory they elect.

There's a loud blast, a crater in the earth near the border of Fire and Rain. He scoffs, wringing his fist to dust off the debris that has gathered between his knuckles and begins to look for the closest inn he can find. He hopes he's tired enough to not dream of lightning strike down on open emerald fields.

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So it's longer than the previous ones. That should about compensate for being a week late.

Review.


	6. f

**Another one out in the same week. Wohoo.**

**Prompt: Unknown soldier, by Breaking Benjamin.**

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**f.**

Sometimes he thinks this is what he deserves: to be alone, where he can't wreak havoc to everything in his path. Looking back, it seems like destruction was the only thing he was capable of.

But he's human, and he's tired of being what he has always been, filled to the brim with anger and a blinding rage that consumed him, constantly looking for something to crash and burn and destroy. The guilt that accompanies those memories is crushing, at times down-right suffocating, and in those moments, in those little lapses where his pride is in ashes and his iron-will is reduced to a husk, he thinks he isn't worthy of the redemption, isn't worthy of their forgiveness. Isn't worthy of her.

That's how Naruto finds him, silently drowning in his own desperation. Sleets of rain pound on the wooden floor from the open window, akin to gunshots ricocheting in the dark, and the thin white curtains flutter in a mad frenzy and Sasuke thinks it's finally over, that the cold he feels under his palm isn't that of his dingy room but the icy chasms of hells, altered to an Arctic cold meant only for him because even the devil knew fire wouldn't work for someone whose rage had burned brighter than any flame.

Naruto's shoes squeak when he moves. Sasuke wonders why he came to a place like this, where there's nothing to see or hear or smell but the rain and the fog that follows it.

"You need to come back," Naruto's deep voice is shadowed by the thunder that splits the sky with a loud roar and when lightning strikes, the shadows on his face get darker. Ominous.

Nothing beyond the abysmal silence, save for the cracking thunder and pounding rain. Sasuke pushes the back of his hand against his left eye. The pain in his arm worsens.

"She doesn't hate you, you know," there's a brief shuffle of clothes, wet fabric sloshing on the surface, and then they're sitting together like they did all those years ago, backs pushed against the wall and eyes angled to the ceiling above. "She just misses you."

"Why?" the words that come out of his mouth are resigned, ones that leave his lips dry and his throat parched. Naruto shrugs beside him.

"Ask her yourself."

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting the cold air invade his lungs and leave icy wisps in its wake. They stay like that till the rain stops pouring and the thunder goes silent, just two men who didn't know what to do with themselves or the world they lived in, boys who had been deprived of the love and kindness they had deserved but never gotten. Until now.

"Just so you know, I punched that asshole for you," Naruto finally says, pushing himself off the ground, a cheeky grin pulling the side of his lips. Sasuke finds himself smirking to that. "You can thank me for that when you come home."

"I'll try not to kick your ass the next time we spar. That should make us even,"

Naruto pretends to bristle at the insult, "Oh yeah, I'd like to see you try, butter fingers."

"Twinkle-toes."

"Emo-princess."

"Real original," Sasuke rolls his eyes, but he's grateful, more than he'd ever admit. Naruto shrugs into his nin-pack again, eyes glowing a bright yellow after a blink, and walks over to the window.

"It's been eight years, Sasuke. She's changed. We all have." Naruto looks back at him and Sasuke wonders where that annoying kid with the blonde hair and big mouth from all those years ago vanished to. "Next time, try to stay longer. At least so you can get to know her better."

Sasuke has no answer for that. Outside, the fog rolls in from the bay, engulfing everything in its path and Naruto jumps into it, a yellow flash of light in the void. He watches him cross the border and decides its time he followed. Seven months is a long time away from home.

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**A shout for all those who've reviewed and liked Home: I love you all. Your feedback really keeps me going.**

**As always, don't forget to tell me what you think. Criticism, good and bad, is always welcomed.**


	7. g

A moment of silence for the people who lost their lives in the Peshawar attack.

**Prompt: Heroes, by Imagine Dragons.**

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There is a chill permeating the air, the kind that settles in his bones and refuses to subside. A vague fog rises in the forest, aimless and lost, and he pushes past it, a lone soldier in the wilderness.

He tries not to think of the horror etched on her face the last time he had seen her, so close to the electricity that flecked off his fingertips, the sound of her shuddered gasp drowned under the call of a thousand chirping birds. He tries not to think of the laughter that had preceded his arrival, or how she had smiled at everything but him. And it brings an onslaught of doubts and self-depreciating thoughts that chase one another like a pack of rabid dogs in his mind, and they makes it so hard to keep pushing one foot after the other and not run in the opposite direction.

He shakes his head, like as if the action itself would wipe his mind clean, and fingers the hilt of his kusanagi, thinking of what to say, knowing that whatever comes out of his mouth, it will never be enough.

Sometimes Sasuke thinks he's swimming in the words, drowning in them. But they desert him when he needs them most.

The tree line parts to give way to the entrance to the village. Clouds start to gather overhead, drifting packs of dark gray, the sight of them in the sky akin to hell hounds sprinting across the horizon, viscous and angry, and some superstitious part of him know that it's a bad omen.

Still, Sasuke convinces himself that this time he'll stay- he'll stay for good and make it work and swallow down the anxiety that rises in his throat from time to time, just for her. Tone down his wanderlust, just for her. Always for her.

He's soaked by the time he reaches the hokage tower, simmering with barely concealed anger and on the verge of exploding. Rage had wiped remorse out like a nuclear blast on a battlefield, and Sasuke feels like as if he's burning- his body is on fire, dark chakra oozing out of his pores like water bursting through cracks in cement. Genin have better chakra control than this.

The other shinobi do well to stay off his path. His fist pounds on the office door and he tears it open, eyes zeroing in man behind the desk.

"Ah, Sasuke. I was wondering when you'd be back," Kakashi waves the other men out of the room. Outside, the sky rips open in a blaze of lightning.

"Where is she?" the words end up coming out as a snarl, and it takes everything he has to keep his sharingan spinning in crazy cartwheels. A sudden burst of pain explodes behind his left eye, blinding him, and he hisses, pushing the heel of his hand against it in an attempt to ease the agony. Kakashi watches him right himself before answering.

"On a mission." Simple. Cryptic. Sasuke wants to pull his hair out by the roots.

"Why?" It seems to Sasuke like as if that's the only thing he can ask these days. His arm begins to tremble. The pain in his eyes grow worse to the point where he can feel the blood vessels pounding in his face.

"Because I sent her."

The throbbing sets his molars to grind. He sucks in a sharp breath and lets his hands fall back to his sides, ignoring the red that stains his fingertips.

Kakashi let his eyes wander to them before setting his gaze up front again. "You should have Tsunade-sama check that for you."

Sasuke has half a mind to keep the sneer from curling his lips.

"I don't _need_ anyone to heal me," ignoring the sting to his temples, he turns on his feet and heads for the door. But what Kakashi says next roots him to spot, and the air trapped in his lungs

"You're burning her," eyes narrowed, Kakashi looks every big the feared and ruthless anbu he was rumoured to be, and Sasuke almost feels that glower penetrate him to the bone. "Next time you leave, I'll have you denounced and in prison for the rest of your miserable life."

Sasuke stiffens, his spine rigid, blood seeping out skin to stigma.

"You'll do well to remember that."

Closing his eyes, he envisions his home and finds himself in the rubble that started it all.

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Review and tell me what you think.


	8. h

**Prompt: A new hope, by Broken Iris.**

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**h.**

Once, during one of his many travels to nowhere, he had stumbled upon a mass funeral; dozens of people in grievance, they flocked down the busted road carrying a multitude of caskets, some large and some so small it took all it had in him to stop the images of that day ten years ago from playing behind his lids like a film.

Still, he had watched them as they moved, heads turned down to the gravel below, eyes blank and hollow. The wooden caskets glowed in afternoon sun, traveling above a sea of whites and blacks and grays, and Sasuke watched as one of the mothers broke down in the middle of the road and began to wail, thin shoulders shuddering by the force of her cries. The others had seemed to ignore her and pressed forward, oblivious to the glaring sun and the smoke that blew with the wind.

He felt like that woman sometimes; surrounded by people who were always pressing forward, he often found himself left stagnant, laying lost and careless and just _there_ while the world carried on to rebuild itself from the broken shambles of the past. He feels like that now as he sits in front of their graves, shoulders down and deflated, feeling utterly blank and a mess of chaotic emotions at the same time. The tomb stones are cold as they have been for years now, casting dark shadows over tall grass, and suddenly he wants to scream, to pull his hair out and cry and bleed and watch the world burn down in flames so he can finally be in peace.

He scoffs, pushing the heel of his palm against his eyes. The green blades beneath him itch at his skin like needles. Above him, the clouds growl, masses of grays and blacks howling with the wind. The air feels charged, like as if the sky is winding up a dynamo ready for a lightning display.

Somewhere within the village, a stream of black smoke rises, its charcoal wisps dissolving into the atmosphere. Sasuke waits as he has been waiting for years now, waits till the sun floats past the horizon and gives way to darkness to reign the sky.

The landscape glows under the light of the full moon. He moves to pick himself off the ground and stares at the names engraved in stones as the clouds open up and soak him, wondering if he could bury all his secrets and his sins with the rest of them.

No sound except the loud pitter patter of the rain against the harsh brown ground. Sasuke closes his eyes and thinks of her, of spring mixed with clear skies and sprinkling seas and a warmth so unrelenting that it feels real on his fingertips and explodes in his mouth. He thinks of the smiles crinkling the corner of her eyes and the happiness swirling the ends of her lips, of her wafting scent of roses and everything that makes her so unbreakable in his mind.

Hair plastered to his face, Sasuke can't stop the desolation from slamming into him. He closes his eyes and sighs.

_I'm sorry._

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**Review.**


	9. i

**SAT is over and happy days are here again. Hallelujah.**

**Prompt: Breaking the habit, Linkin Park.**

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**i.**

Then he gets angry.

Rage, pure and undiluted, runs through his veins, charging his cells, and when he sees Naruto roaming carelessly through the streets, he looses it.

"You," the word cuts through his teeth, lips pulled up into a sneer, canines digging into gums.

There's a sudden pull of air, a second of breathlessness in his lungs and he's standing in the lush greens of their training ground, pale fingers digging into black fabric. Naruto watches him tentatively, pupils morphing to a slit, eyes glowing gold like the sun; his own sharingan spins crimson.

"Don't even think of blaming this one on me, bastard," Naruto's voice echoes in his cranium, and Sasuke, livid, tightens his hold.

Seething, the electricity flickers on his fingertips, snapping at his skin, and Sasuke plunges it straight for Naruto's chest. The clone disappears in a puff of smoke. He scoffs and turns to the treeline where the blonde stands on a high branch, arms folded on his torso, a smudge of orange in a mass of green.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Naruto stares at him, face devoid of any emotion.

"It wasn't important."

Sasuke feels the sudden carnal urge to throw his head back and bark out a laugh. His lips twitch down to a snarl.

"Don't fuck with me."

Sharingan swirling, he pulls the kusunagi out and pushes himself off the ground. The push of the air against his form propels him further, and he uses his momentum to crash into the tree where Naruto stands, using his sword to tear down the trunk. Splinters fly into his eyes and pepper his hair and Sasuke revels in the adrenaline that rushes through his veins like alcohol, inducing him in its stupor, the kind of high that can only be achieved by bruising his knuckles and surveying a battle field. And it helps him forget; all the little details fly out his mind till everything narrows down to a single slit, and as he pulls his sword out of the wood, he understands what he is, what he will always be: a killer, a soldier. No metaphors, no sugarcoatings, just him and what his hands have been trained to do since day one. It's the truth he spent years traveling the world finding, the liberation and revelation he searched for.

Up ahead, Naruto lands on his feet like the fox he is, eyes wild and hair in a frenzy, fingers curling into fists.

"Don't be an idiot, Sasuke."

A silent heartbeat follows. They stare at each other. Then he flies.

Each blow they trade is pronounced with chakra, the power behind every kick enough to blow leaves off the trees.

Naruto parries his strikes with his kunais; silver on silver, the metals clink on impact, clattering to the ground as they fly through the surrounding forests. The smell of acrid smoke burns in his lungs, scalding his throat and tongue when he lets the flame erupt from his mouth. The fingers that direct the katon glow a bright red, pulsing with the rhythm of his irregular heart beat.

"I'm done," his voice sounds too gruff even to his own ears, concealing the whirl of emotions swirling in his belly, "I've had enough."

Naruto's fist colliding with his face comes as a surprise, and Sasuke chokes on the blood that clogs his throat.

"You've had enough? _YOU_?" Hands fisted in the collar of his shirt, Naruto shakes the breath out of him. "What about her? What about all the times you pissed off to God knows where for months without a word? What about all the years you went on a stupid rampage and she still stayed here, hoping you'd get hit on the head and g_row some fucking common sense_?"

Sasuke blinks at the fangs that grow out of Naruto's gums, the enamel vibrating with his growls. His lips pull down to a grimace at the memories that flood him.

"What about all the years you wasted and she was still there in your corner, loyal to a fault?

What about," Naruto's voice lowers to a murmur, punctuated with guilt and remorse, "What about the time we both abandoned her and she had to grow up alone?"

Sasuke knows he's had enough.

He shrugs out of the blonde's hold and pushes his hand again his mouth to wipe the blood. Naruto let's his hands fall by his sides and silence floods the battered training ground. Up above, the sun glows to a cool red, casting Konoha in its dying shadows as birds fly back to their nests, their wings leaving track marks in the clouds. Sasuke fists his hands and let's it pass like he always has.

* * *

**I feel like a prisoner of war who's been released after years of imprisonment. The freedom is liberating.**

**Thank you ever one who has read, liked and reviewed HOME. I'm touched that people like this story so much.**

**As always, tell me what you guys think. Reviews are good for the writer's soul.**


	10. j

**New chapter out. It's like all those ideas are bursting to come out and I can't sleep till I put something on again. **

**Prompt: Waiting for the end, by Linkin Park.**

* * *

**j.**

The heavens rip open with a silence that contradicts the incessant ringing in his ears, echoing in a way that's constant to the earth and its orbit. Sasuke thinks he's sick of the rain, tired of watching it fall and patter on the dry ground to fill up tea-coloured puddles the way memory bombs still, tea-coloured minds; the sound reminds him of damp underground trenches and journeys through the fog, of an age and memory he wants to burn out like the black flame that burns in those images behind his lids.

It had rained the day he had entered a sealed up Uchiha compound, tracing his steps on the cobble stone pathways with a reverie that rivaled that of the dead. It had rained the day Itachi had died, a rueful smile twisted on his lips as the blood seeped out of him and left him dry- Sasuke has had bad memories linked with the rain, and yet the gray clouds follow him like faithful strays.

The kyuubi's chakra dies down like muted sunlight before a storm, and as Naruto blinks back to his blue eyes, Sasuke thinks that maybe he's been wrong of him being the indestructible one out of the four of them. He thinks of his brothers words and of the war they had fought to the end, burning out their limbs to ash and blood and ancestry; of standing silent in crowds of moving people who never looked back to the rubble of the past, necks bent to facilitate their views of the ground because it hurt too much to see the horizon. Sasuke thinks of the burst of colour in his mind and the spark of spring in his mouth, of the memory of rain in his lungs and the scent of wet grass in his nose and how it never really changes no matter where you are. He thinks maybe its time to change the flow of history and be the one to bring her back home this time.

"Where did she go to?" The words float past his lips in a cloud of white mist, the rainwater mixing with the sound of his voice. He sees Naruto smile.

"Hell if I know. Hell if I ever knew," he says, voice tinted with a self resigned sadness that reflects his guilt. But then he looks at him and Sasuke knows there's something that binds them, an intangible string that beats and hums and stretches taut but never breaks.

The rain accompanies the spell of silence that follows.

Then: "Kakashi-sensie is gonna be so mad when he hears of this," the blonde besides him groans, holding his head in his hands as they survey the remains of the broken training ground. "He's going to kill us."

"You," Sasuke corrects, pushing the kusunagi back in its sheath, "He's going to kill you."

Naruto sputters.

"Whaa- bastard, don't abandon me. This is your fault too! Wait, don't walk walk away from me, Sasuke. _SASUKE_!"

The smirk that pulls on his lips is the last thing Naruto sees before he transports himself to the Hokage tower.

_"YOU ASSHOLE!"_

* * *

**A dash of well-deserved humor at the end. **

**Review.**


	11. k

**Prompt: Elastic heart, by Sia.**

* * *

**k.**

"I wish to escort my wife back from her mission," a slow grumble, almost like annoyance, "Hokage - Sama."

Kakashi leans on his palm, an amused smile peaking from beneath his mask, charcoal eyes gleaming; it makes Sasuke ' eyes twitch.

"Is that so?" Finger threading through his hair, his sensie eases back into his chair and stares at him from the corner of his eye. Outside, the rain finally comes to a stop, slowly working its way to a final crescendo.

"And if I refuse?"

Sasuke knows neither of them want the answer to that. A bated moment passes, another pounding breath escaping from his chest. He shifts his gaze to the desk.

"Fine." Kakashi sighs, waving him out of his office. "She's in Suna."

If he were a lesser man, Sasuke thinks he might have whooped in joy, or something close to it. Instead, he keeps his lips from twitching into a grin and bows. "Thank you."

Kakashi 's eyes soften. Then, as if remembering something trivial, he folds his arms behind his head and says, almost carelessly, "You should move out then. She's scheduled to leave at dawn. If you hurry now, you might mak-"

He's already out of the tower before Kakashi can finish his sentence.

Transporting himself in front of their house, he stares at the surrounding walls, almost apprehensive of going in. The kitchen door opens to the same wooden floors he's went over a thousand times, but the air seems eerie, as if the house doesn't want to be associated with him anymore.

But he dispels it and moves to their room. The sheets, stiff from being unused for so long, are littered with dust, the curtains gray and dull and the carpet lacks warmth he remembers being accustomed to. The cabinets are empty, the shelves bare, the fruit basket on the counter drenched in black and white.

He feels like as if he's entered a monochrome world and wonders if that's what his life would be without her splash of colour in it.

Pulling his cloak over his shoulders, he seals his weapons and pulls a travel bag over his shoulders. The house is quiet as it bids him farewell, and maybe if he strains hard enough, he wonders if he will be able to hears its silent encouragement.

As he straps his sandals over his feet, the cold rivets of water cascade down his hair and past his spine from a hasty shower in the cold water, and he looks at himself in the mirror one last time and sees his family in the reflection: his brothers eyes stare back at him, a black so deep it seems to swallow his pupils whole, and he sees his mother in the curve of his upper lip but most prominent, he sees his father in his face, weary and tired but charged with purpose and meaning, a will to protect his family from the darkness that has always skirted the lives of the Uchiha.

Outside, the clouds part to give way to the moon that glows in the sky, its light overshadowing the stars so the horizon appears as a vast ocean of uninterrupted darkness. Konoha proceeds to seep into sleep, each glimmer of florescent light a sun to the insects that crawl out of the ground and flutter their paper wings, burning to ash and dust when they got too close. Sasuke looks at the sky when he closes the door of his home behind him, at the clear black crystalline space around the moon and the stream of gray that erupts everywhere, breathes in the smell of dew grass and jasmine and holds it in his lungs and imagines it blooming there like a bud, spreading it roots through his bronchi like a birch tree taking ground; he can almost taste the chlorophyll on his tongue, feel the green pigment burning in his nostrils and evading his cranium like moth smoke. They linger in him for some time, the sanctity of existence and the fundamental proof of life.

Sasuke takes it all in. Then he disappears.

* * *

**Personally, I enjoyed writing the ending- inspired by the opening song of Tokyo ghoul root. Amazing series really.**

**Review and let me know what you think.**

**A shout out to those reviewers who I haven't PM-ed: Thank you for your words. They help a lot.**

**The guest who reviewed saying they're confused: what were you confused about, exactly? Let me know and I'll try to clear it out for you.**


	12. l

**Almost got a hundred favorites for _Home._ I honestly never expected it to be this liked.**

**Excuse any mistakes; I don't have a beta reader and when you read the same text over ten times, the errors seem to blur together.**

**Prompt: Roads unraveled, by Linkin Park.**

* * *

**l.**

Before he feels the pinch of disappointment clench at his heart and nip at his skin, before the sun burns the sand red and drains dying spirits from the ground, Sasuke stands just shy of the border, a speck of blue and black in an endless sea of waxy green leaves and wet tree bark. The sound of the forest wakes him to dusk, and as he walks under thick canopies fringed with creepers and vines, a mesh of entwined branches holds the light back, permitting only scant bars of anemic moonlight to penitrate and reach the ground where the moss and undergrowth spur in a whirl of plasticity, warring for the warmth to brush their surfaces. Up ahead, the treeline stretches on either side of him to give way to the desert to delve in and create an oasis of plantation and arid dust.

A soft breeze wafts past him, ruffling his hair and cloak. Sasuke holds his breath to keep the scent of home in his lungs.

The sand crunches under his boots like gravel, travelling between his toes and under his skin in a way of greeting that is both conflicting and suffocating. The air is cold but fresh, washed to an antiseptic quality like oxygen from a hospital tank, but Sasuke is not ungrateful: he remembers the scorching heat of the desert from that one day from the war, remembers the sudden fear that had grabbed his lungs and squeezed his wind pipes when the vast expanse of endless sand dunes had engulfed him in a choke hold. It had seemed endless then, the earth, with no end or beginning to speak of, no sign of anything anywhere. Here, atleast he knows he's not alone- he has a waking sky above his shoulders and the forests behind his back, and it's better than having a cloudless, blinding horizon spread across the world and a glaring sun pounding over his eyebrows.

His legs aches as he pushes past the sand posts, muscles protesting in a groan when he slips little wisps of blue chakra to his feet to cover greater distances. But his back is warm and his arm is numb and he just wants to fall in her pastel pink embrace again and lie there forever, till the stars change constellations and the moon collides with the sun in an orgy of cosmic light.

So he pushes himself to be faster, sliding a soldier pill down his throat when the tendons in his neck start to throb. He reaches Suna in good time, just a dash before dawn, but the empty pathway beyond the gates confuse him.

"I'm afraid you've been misinformed, " the guard, a chunin with scarlet hair and steel eyes that gleam under the glare of the sun, says, "Haruno-san left our borders a week ago."

Sasuke has never in his life felt such an unparalleled urge to throttle Kakashi and snap his neck as he does now. Already, he can feel the migraine thundering.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he mutters, "Uchiha."

The guard blinks. "Pardon?"

Sasuke releases a measured breath and clarifies, "Her name is Uchiha Sakura." And then he wants to laugh at himself for noticing such a small, inconsequential detail.

The guard frowns in puzzlement but refrains from saying anything else. Sasuke squats down the urge to groan and slides a tired hand over his face; his skin feels like marble under his fingertips.

"Did she say where she was going?"

The guards exchange a glance, before the redhead answers, "We're sorry, but such information does not fall under our jurisdiction." A pause, then: "Perhaps the Kazekage can help you."

Sasuke thinks of sea - foam insomniac eyes and sandy spikes of crimson hair that bleed under the sun, and he thinks he's too tired to think of any other mirror to equate how the kage of sand resembles the dark reflection of his wife and how Kakashi should never play match - maker or patch - maker or any other kind of maker if he can help it. It's a resigned slip, a silent whisper of his resolve and his muscles have had enough and he's had enough and would it be too much if he just falls back and sinks into the sand behind him?

The morning sun emerges to take its place in the sky, burning bright like molten iron sizzling in a furnace. A tall shadow falls over the ground besides him. The guards bow their heads as Sasuke tries to blink the sleep of his eyes.

"Gaara."

* * *

**Guest who was confused: Yes, yes he does. Because he was angry and later it was his shame kept him from going back.**

**As always, drop a review and tell me what you think.**


	13. m

**Prompt: Be somebody, by Thousand foot krutch.**

* * *

**m.**

The blinds keep most of the bright sunlight from glaring at his bed ridden form and frying his brain like a laser beam, but some of it penitrates through and falls to the ground like reflections from plexiglass. Motes of air and dust dance in those dull bars, atomic sized particles cartwheeling like circus animals in space, trapped in the motion.

Sasuke folds his arm over his eyes like as if the action itself would separate him from the world and its complications. Keeping his eyes shut, he counts backwards till the numbers blur in a whirl smoke in his numb mind and he feels alienated from his own body, like an extraterrestrial residing in a foreign host. His prosthetic arm throbs with the pulse of his heart, arteries humming in a constant peristaltic hum, nerve endings tied in a jumble knot of high-wired stress and the strange urge to move. To do something, anything, to busy his hands and mind.

He ponders at the peculiarity of human nature, of his own selfishness, and how he has always somehow seen her empathy as a superiority over his self, how even when he saw her too bright and too eager to burn her light in his clouded world, he could not let her go. Selfishly, he admits his weakness, and wonder if this weakness comes from a deficit of character. But Sasuke is an Uchiha, and he has memories of his clan strumming deep inside his heart, of the silent love that had spiraled the streets of the Uchiha district like a soft wafting breeze on a quiet, summer night and he thinks that maybe it's okay to be a little selfish sometimes. He admits to the desolation he has felt, admits to never quite feeling worthy of a life where blood doesn't bleed on pavements and splatter of side walks and where the rooms aren't cramped and oxygen deprived and the ceiling isn't too low to impose on his senses, and the windows open to a constant back yard and not dusty streets of a new city every day; he is an Uchiha, his spine is as stiff as a rod and his pride is the only thing he think he has left, but he is human, breakable so. And there's so much he can do or say or believe till he curls up inside his mind and decides to remain there forever.

The cold shower he takes washes away the sand from his hair, but the ruminations cling to him like a second skin and he thinks he can still feel some of them stuck in his cuticles. Black shirt over white skin, he feels like a bullseye for a tornado to come crashing down, a stranger in stranger land. Suna is warm, too warm for his rain - trained senses and heart and he thinks he can hear his soul rattling inside him with nothing to hold on to. It takes effort to gulps down the urge to lurch.

The kage tower stands like a black pillar in the glare of the sun that sparks behind it. Sasuke bends his neck against the solar flare and travels in the silence that engulfs him like a cloak. Inside, Gaara stands in an empty office, green eyes rimmed with coal, his red robes and hat lying face down like a puddle on the mahogany desk. Sasuke's lips pull down to a grimace.

"I never took Kakashi-san for someone who would take pleasure in his student's misery," the crack at humor makes Sasuke groan.

"He's turning sadistic."

One side of Gaara's lips lift up for a split of a second before flattening out. Sasuke nearly rubs his eyes.

"I received a letter from him last night." Sea-foam eyes prob at him. "It's for you."

Twenty minutes later, the guards notice a streak of blue lightning flashing across the desert horizon at top speed, like a comet flickering in the night sky through the galaxy.

Sasuke pauses by the border of Wind country and let's the rain - laden breeze infiltrate his lungs till the smell of home comes back to him and renews him with purpose. Across the continent and the great Naruto bridge, Sakura feels someone calling her name.

* * *

**Story's coming back on track again. Well, kind of.**

**RREVIEW=ONE SLAP TO MY FACE TO SNAP ME BACK INO WRITING THIS BOOK TILL THE END**

**and I burned out my capcaps - lock. But seriously, I love all those who drop a word down. **

**And I'm not going to stop till this is finished But I like reviews. So make me happy.**


	14. n

**Prompt: Broken arrow, by The Script.**

* * *

**n.**

Sasuke remembers seeing the light flashing across the horizon above the tree tops like streaks of lightning pushing past the universe in a sizzling trail of madness. He remembers the leaves parting and the sky brightening and most of all, he remembers the softness of her gasp when she collides into him, swallowed by his jacket and penitrating to his chest. Sasuke remembers feeling spring hit winter and then he's flying down, zeroing in to the ground like a falling meteorite . There's little time to prevent it, but now that there's heat emanating from the body between his arms, he doesn't feel the need to. So he simply flips them over and let's the ground knock the air out of his lungs.

His back collides with the forest floor with a bone aching thud, knocking his heart into his throat to sing a duet with his voice box. The canopy above them doubles in his eyes, images flipping in his corneas like reels of a film. His ears thrum with the sound of the wilderness that surround them, echoing with the screech of black crows that reverberates through the tree trunks like a halo spreading across the earth.

She scrambles off of him, gasping a quick _Sasuke-kun_ under her breath and when Sasuke opens his eyes again, he sees the leaves dancing under her lashes; he sees the universe revolving in her breath and smells the rain on her skin and thinks he's been a fool to be blind for so long.

"Why," her fingers bleed green around his face, "What were you thinking?"

Blinking myopically, he tries to focus on her words but his brain hurts and his body hurts and he thinks he's spent too long listening and not answering her. So when she bends in close, he holds onto to the back of her neck and holds her there.

"I don't know," he doesn't like how his voice sounds so winded, so lost and weak and utterly confused, but when his arms shoots a sizzle of blinding pain to his spine, he forgets and bites down on his hiss. She blinks above him and clicks her tongue.

"Careless," her voice is akin to that of a reprimanding mother chastising a toddler, and Sasuke has half a mind to keep himself from pouting like one, his bottom lip dragging across the floor. And as her essence flows through his veins again, healing his pain, he wants to stay there forever and forget the life he's still trying to escape, to fall under the surface and float between who he wants to be and who the world needs him to be but here, lying on the moss covered floor with the souls of his shoes smeared with wet grass and his lungs wet with the aroma of rain , he thinks he can start again.

"Come back," he head her whisper after a moment. "Come back home with me, please?"

Sasuke stares at the sky above them, at tiny dots that blink in and out of existence in front of him, and hopes for the rain again. Her anxiousness rolls off of her skin in waves, weaving out to meld with the mesh of his cells and lungs. He turns to look at her and finds her chewing her lip raw.

"Not yet."

The sun reflects in her glassy eyes like light in a prism. He threads his fingers through her's and listens to the world come awake between their fingertips.

* * *

I might have been a little late on this. Maybe.

I love all of you. Honest. Thank you all for the reviews and the likes and the favorites and HOLYSHITIHAVEMORETHANA100LIKES :D:D

Review and tell me what you think. If its crappy and the rest were diamonds, still let me know. I fear I am losing my touch :'(


	15. o

**Exams are the ban of humanity. **

**Excuse the mistakes.**

**Prompt: I gave you all, by Mumford and sons.**

* * *

**o.**

There's something bright that burns in the corner of his periphery- it sparks like a firefly, a little hum of energy moving in haphazard circles, and suddenly he can hear their laughter again. Voices once long forgotten, they float beyond the darkness under his lids and explode like colours on canvas, drenching his mind with the colours of life and clouding his lungs with the smell of moss dew.

Opening his eyes, Sasuke stares at the ceiling above his head, at the chipped plaster and the peeling paint, and wonders if the old memories will leave him one day. Some days he thinks he doesn't want to remember what summer looked like in the old Uchiha district, coloured with the green of thick leaves and tea coloured cobble stones that glowed gold under the sun, but some days, some days he's so afraid of letting go. Of letting the dreams fade and the images of his family, his whole clan, blurring into an intangible mesh of broken bones and molten silica. He fears he'll be sinning if he lets them slip through his fingers like desert sand.

That light burns again, and he turns to look at her, and how the world parts to give her colour. Even now, with the rain beating on the windows and the air being so grayish and bleak, she thrums with something he can't explain, something that mends and revolves and never quite stops, the very trait that makes her skin glow.

When Sasuke sees his wife, he doesn't necessarily see her; he sees the light emanating from her eyes and the life pulsing in her veins; he sees the skies as the sun moves down and burns the clouds, a canvas drenched in crimson and black and white and yellow, sees the colours watering onto something new everyday. And it always reminds him of the innocence he had once seen shining in the playgrounds of Konoha, of the camaraderie he had seen passing through the old training grounds of Team 7, of the love that had once smoothed through his clan like a breath of fresh air on an early autumn morning. And it makes something inside him skip and the air rushes out of his lungs in a punch of nostalgia and regret and lost opportunities, but sometimes, sometimes it inundates him with a purpose, a will to finally see the world drenched in colours and to leave the past behind with the setting sun.

She comes to stand by his bedside, a towel draped on her shoulders, white shift hanging loose about her waist and water dripping down the curve of her spine. Her pastel pink hair lay flat on the back of her neck, the tips curling below her ears, and Sasuke feels this unexplainable urge to thread his fingers through them, to feel each tendril cling to his skin and leave their mark on his palm.

Bending to his level, she pushes her bangs out of her eyes. "Why are we here, Sasuke?"

They listen to the floor wood as the inn bends with the screeching wind and rain, listen as the plaster chips off the wall and the windows vibrate with the gushing torrents of air. Sasuke stares at the ceiling above him and thinks for a moment.

"We're here," his breath floats in the dim room like a ghost, "so you can get your answers."

She blinks, lips parting a moment later as the words come rushing out. "Sasuke, I don't ne-"

"You do," craning his neck, he runs his finger over the curve of her jaw and pushes his fingers through her's, pulling her close so he can see the black flecks in her eyes and feel the blood rushing through her jugular. Her mouth wavers, a tremble barely noticeable, just by the corner of her lips; he probs a bandaged digit there and feels the tissues slide.

"It's time I showed you."

* * *

**This is where the actual plot comes in. I'm excited to see where this goes. Are you?**

**Review my lovely peeps.**


	16. p

**Well, I'm not dead. Yet anyway.**

**But this is a long chapter and should make up for the time I went MIA.**

**I LOVE YOU ALL.**

**Prompt: All along the watchtower (Alex Da Kid Remix), by Jamie Commons.**

* * *

**p.**

He starts from the beginning of the end.

"There is a shrine in the outskirts of the village."

He supposes the real history started there all those years ago, before the leaf was built by the founders and there were just two boys on different sides of the river bank, skipping stones and trying to make it through a war unscathed and unhurt. Bleak and dark, even in the images of his memory, the red pillars blur in a mesh of broken hopes, a symbol of the bad blood splattered everywhere- on the battlefields, on his hands.

"Under the prayer room used to be the meeting room of the Uchiha.

And a stone tablet that had caused battles for centuries."

Feeling sardonic, he lets his lips twist to a cruel smirk.

_We fought wars because of a distorted piece of stone. How does that make you feel about us now?_

So he tells her. About the founders, about the wars and about his brother, the very one who had lived his life as a sacrifice for his beloved country. The unsung hero, the silent martyr, surviving on the silence that had crippled him from the inside and left him raw. He tells her about the tree of chakra, its forbidden fruit and the heiress who caught it in her palms to end the misery, only to let the power consume her whole; he tells her about the sage and the tailed beasts, about the two sons who paved history for the world.

His memory shifts to the black zetsu and his hands crush the sheets on reflex.

"He altered history."

Sasuke ponders how false the liberation of truth is depicted: he had not felt satisfied, nor had the chasm in his heart settled; it had only grown till it had engulfed him and he had stumbled into the rain and drowned. But Sasuke knows he's too tried of sinking under the surface just to make himself feel something other than injustice and rage. But it had been his family that had paid the price, his clan that had had to be cleansed to mark the new world. They had been forsaken by the world, forsaken of trust and happiness till there was nothing left to them but suicide and death. In the end, he was the one who had lost everything.

She threads their fingers together then, her pristine skin moulding with his pale one, thrumming with life. He looks at his hands and sees the scars of his katana and summons and senbons and holds down the urge to lurch. They listen to the wailing wind together, see lightening flash and the smoke rise and wait for dawn to resurface again.

Sakura folds her legs to her chest, her feet hovering just over the wooden floor, one hand clasped in his while the other holds her knees to her chest. Sasuke closes his eyes and starts again.

"When the village was made and the clans came together, there was a branch of the Uchiha who stayed behind by the borders. They made their way through mining in the caves in the mountains. Many of them became craftsmen and started trading with the other villages- they prospered, but then, the mines depleted."

The sun breaks through the horizon, illuminating the dark sky, a ball of fire out to conquer the elements. The white curtains of their room glow with the receding light of the moon that slowly fades out of existence.

"My grandfather found them on one of his missions. His journal doesn't mention how he knew they shared the same blood, but my brother said he must have felt it- "

The tethered bond, a silent connection. He wonders if he would've felt it too.

"He funded the exploration of other sites alongside the border. Eventually, they found one. The permit was signed under my grandfather's name but everything else was under their management. As payment, however, it was decided that they would send a portion of their profits to the main branch. Only the heads knew of this."

She looks at him then, green eyes neon bright and calculating.

"Are they still alive?"

He nods, then tightens his hold on her fingers. "Itachi had visited them before the massacre-" he purses his lips at the word, "but by then, they had branched out. Many had married into the locals and over time, the existence of the sharingan faded into an urban legend. They were traders, not shinobi. None of them had knowledge on manipulating chakra and so they didn't need to die. Itachi made sure the elders- especially Danzo- would never know about them. So he burned my grandfather's journal."

She nods carefully, pushing her hair behind her ear, eyes glazed over. He looks over to the window and frowns.

"I didn't know of this until during the war."

Thinking of his brother's last words to his before he fluttered out and scattered like paper birds, Sasuke sits up, his feet planted near her toes and his head hung low. Knees bent over the edge of the bed, he remembers the last time they had been this close and automatically, his eyes move to the scar on his thigh that tingles under his trousers in response. His bandaged hand clamps over it.

Her fingers skim over to his prosthetic and he wishes he could feel something more than the plastic sensation that came with it.

"And after a hundred and fifty years, the first child with the red eyes was born."

She stiffens. Sasuke blows out and watches his breath float as white mist in front of him.

* * *

**Personally, I think it could've been better. But meh. At least it's something.**

**It's been like three months since I wrote anything related to this story so I'm a bit rusty.**

**Thank you everyone who has reviewed. I haven't had the time to reply back to each one yet but I will fix that soon.**

**As always, drop by to tell me what you think.**


	17. q

**The new chapter was like wut **

**Buttt, it was hilarious. And has a few loopholes. **

**Suigetsu and Juugo look fiinnnee. So pretty. And Orochimaru is giving everyone a run for their money.**

**I apologize for any mistakes.**

**Prompt: Crawl, by Breaking Benjamin. **

* * *

**q.**

She glances at him from the corner of her eye.

"Did you meet him?"

Sasuke closes his eyes and says, "No. I was too late."

The clouds part to give way to sunlight to penitrate and fall to the surface below. Sasuke looks out the window and envisions the people on the surface breaking out of their homes to bask these little moments of sunshine before the rain took it away from them again- he had stayed to watch them one day, had seen the light break to a million pieces and reflect over the metal pipes and chimneys that acted as prisms for the rainbows to burst out everywhere. When the sun fell on rain country, it fell with the intensity of its burning core and threatened to crisp skin and sea to a crimson glaze. But the people cherished every moment of it. It made him smile at the simplicity of their thought.

Sakura tugs on their adjoined hands. He tilts his head before sliding down the bed and sitting on the wooden floor that creaks and groans under his weight, moaning as the panels stretched. The sun narrows in on his face from the parted windows- Sasuke can feel it penitrating through skin to the nerves below.

Raking a hand through her hair, Sakura blinks in response to the harsh glare that falls in her eyes and tangles in her curved lashes.

"What happened to him?" She whispers, folding her free hand on her knees and cradling her face in the juncture of her elbow, eyes focused on him. Sasuke stares back, neither of them blinking.

"Bounty hunters." The disdain, he can feel it on his tongue. "He was caught in the cross fire," reverting his eyes, his voice lowers to an irritated mutter, "At least that's what I gathered."

The blinding rage, the uninhibited madness, it claws its way back to him till he can see it rewinding behind his lids like a film; he had melted to a fit for a boy he had never met or known existed, dusted his way back to his old ways for a child he was never going to see. But the boy had represented a hope that he himself didn't know had existed until he had found him, dead and dumped in a ditch, eyes bloodshot and nails drenched in black ink, mouth contorted in horror, caught still in the motion. Sasuke had vowed vengeance under the streak of lightning that had illuminated the sky, drenched them in electricity and brought out the monster he had tried so hard to tame for years.

Then he had killed. Murdered. Plunged in blood. He had taken his sweet time, twisting his katana with a slowness that guaranteed a painful departure which promised bliss, only to shatter that promise each time he burned the wounds with his chidori and started the routine from the beginning. Screams, so loud, first punctuated with threats and later with cries for mercy- they had filled his eardrums and the streets of the little village by the borders where he had found them. That night, even the dead had risen from their graves and meandered the dirt paths and cobble stone roads like milky ghosts, searching for the lost, beckoning them to the underworld with their broken fingers and toothless grins and Sasuke had dragged them back each time they dared to venture too close past the point of no return.

There had been five of them when he had entered the bar, and only two had their heads intact by the time the night had ended. Near sunrise, Sasuke had walked out with the hood of his cloak over his head and disappeared with the morning fog.

But now, a year later, he can still see the blood splashed over the bandages of his plastic hand. And it has stayed with him since, regardless of the amount of white crepe he had changed over the time, just dangling there, over his fingertips, oozing between the digits, over the places where his nails should have been. His breath shudders in his lungs when the coppery smell inundates his nose and chest.

Sometimes when Sasuke remembers that night, he's not sure whether he should feel satisfied or disgusted.

"I'm sorry," her voice flutters to him, and he looks at her from under his lashes.

"For what?"

She blinks back. "For everything"

Sasuke gives her hand a light squeeze. The smile she returns is crooked.

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**Review my pretties.**


	18. r

**Well, that was one hell of a Gaiden. **

**Am I the only one happy to see that Sakura and Karin are friends? **

**A part of this chapter is because of the last panel shared between Sasuke and Sakura, and because I read too much into that devious smirk of his. Kishimoto brings me to tears- of anger, happiness, frustration, you name it. And to think that it's over, again. Excuse me as I go and brawl with no sign of inhibition and public dignity. **

**Prompt: We sink, by Of Monsters and Men.**

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**r.**

Standing under the steady spray of the water that pelts down his spine in rivets, he leans his head against the cracked white tiles and flexes his hand- the blackened hand that he had lost to make a point, the one which had disintegrated along with his long held hatred and deep-rooted anger in the last ditch effort to wipe the slate clean and cleanse his chest of the burdens he was made to carry when his clan had flickered out of existence like candle lights, one after the other, a death parade he was forcefully excluded from. The black mesh of muscle and bone moves in a peristaltic wave in response to his train of thoughts- like a snake, the ripple moves from the tips of his fingers to the point where his alabaster skin met the tar prosthetic.

A demon's arm, meant for the demon inside him, to sate a hunger that stems from somewhere within and leaves him appalled in the aftermath.

Sometimes when Sasuke sleeps, he feels like as if he's drowning. When Sasuke sleeps, he dreams of dark places and faces that should never resurface from the depth of his unconscious mind- gruesome fingers and accusing eyes, they all stare at him as he sinks, eyes sealed shut and mouth filled with salt water and grime, drifting away from the surface, held paralyzed in a reverie. His black hand sends a shock of pain to his stump, and Sasuke looks at it from under his lashes, the extension as dark as a raven's feathers. The tips of his fingers are slanted, like scalpels ready for surgery or claws to pick away skin and tissue with the quick precision of a predator. He almost feels pity for himself for a second when he stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

She's standing by the window when he comes out, his hair flat against his forehead, blue sweatpants hanging low on his hips, scars open to the walls to gawk at. Arms folded, her eyes peer out into the rain soaked pavements and the pier. He places a kiss on her exposed shoulder blade.

"I can see why you like it," she glances at his from the corner of her eyes, a smile itching to break the corners of her lips. Blinking, he trails his fingers where the muscles twitch and feels a swell of pride when her cheeks flush. "Sasuke-kun!"

He chuckles. "Prude."

Her lip juts out, skin burning a steady scarlet, pastel pink hair fanning about her face like a halo charged in the darkness. "I am not!" She shrieks, feeling undignified.

Sasuke raises an eyebrow, "I'm sure."

"I was talking about this place, not - I mean, um" watching her stutter beneath him, he feels a surge of- of something warm that blossoms in his chest and blooms along his spine, down his toes and on the base of his neck. So he snakes an arm around her waist and pulls her against his chest and smirks when she fumbles for words. "This-uh, no. Don't be so unfair, Sasuke-kun!"

Bringing his face down, he whispers, "Why not?"

Her green eyes blaze under her lashes. Sasuke pulls her bangs behind her ears with his freshly bandaged hand and joins their foreheads together, inevitably sparking the memory of sunlight sparkling in the spring on cobblestone pavements and green trees and he knows the lightness from his chest is gone.

Her hands go around him as she hugs him.

"Sometimes I wish I could be enough to bring you peace," her lashes tickle the exposed skin of his neck and her breath tingles over his jugular. He looks out to the sea and the fog that threatens to loom, his arms wound loosely around Sakura's waist.

Looking out the window, his wife cradled in his chest, Sasuke plans his last journey away from home.

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** Review.**


	19. s

**This unhealthy delay can be blamed on the fact that i was globetrotting- welll, I don't know if visiting eleven states in the US and a couple of cities in UK _counts _as that, but still. I HAVE SEEN MANY THINGS, GRASSHOPPERS. THE WORLD IS A BIG PLACE OKAY.**

**And I finally got a computer with a good spell check because the auto correct of my phone has been contaminated. So yea. Ahem.**

**ONWARDS.**

**Prompt: Bloodstream, by Ed Sheeran.**

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**s.**

"What are you thinking?" he asks, eyes unblinking, his breath floating in front of him in condensation.

Sakura trails her fingers across the walls of the cave, dragging trails of sticky water along the charcoal rocks, over rugged ends and spiked tops. She ducks as she goes further.

"Of how wrong I was," her voice reaches him in an echo that drowns under the noise of the waterfall behind him. She sounds defensive, almost angry. His words falter.

Sasuke closes his eyes and takes a hollow breath in, channelling it inside to clear the muck from his lungs and the fear from his heart. Sakura looks back at him from over a shoulder, just a quick glance to make sure he's there and upright and not cringing like he was during their time on the move through the lush forests of the Fire country. Her eyes cut through him though, those piercing jade irises pulling his chest apart and leaving him raw; it makes him grind his teeth in an effort to subdue the landmine in his mind.

But not once does he think that this- this is a bad idea. Changing memories of the past and making them a better part of his future, _how can that be wrong?_

"It's almost ironic," she says after a while, her voice sardonic, lips twisted to a rueful smile as she extends her fingers in his direction, "that you were always so close and we were always so off mark."

Sasuke doesn't know what to say to that, so he remains silent. Sakura looks at him for a second more from under her fringe before continuing her exploration, her shoes sending ripples in puddles that lay on the base of the cave. He follows.

They come to a stop by the spring rooted deep within the mountain. The steam curls around their feet like moth smoke.

"I felt as though it deserved more respect. So I would practice it as close to the land where I had first learned to wield it." And that was the truth, wasn't it- in his utmost attempts to destroy the strings that held him to Konoha and team 7, he had, unwittingly, done the opposite.

His response brings out an honest smile to her face, vivid in its nature, the kind where her eyes glimmer with her lips. It reminds him of open meadows in bloom, of flowers bursting open in joy and lush grass singing in the wind like an orchestra of flutes, a ballad of heaven and earth and all the space in between.

He looks down at her and says, "Do you want to see it?"

She nods, eyes following his hand as he pulls the katana out of its sheath with a slowness that almost seems sensual and purposed. Then he pumps chakra to his feet, snakes an arm around her waist with the agility of a hawk and brings them to the opening of the cave where he pushes the blade inside the earth and let's the electricity flickers off his fingertips. Instantly, the moisture lining the wall glows and sizzles, the sparks traveling in a cross line to the waterfall and the lake below, dancing over the surface a million times the speed. The bolt travels far into the distance till he pulls his hand off the hilt.

The blue streak burns for a second more before dissipating into the atmosphere. The screech of a thousand chipping bird dies with it. Sasuke narrows his eyes at the setting sun as the silence slithers in around them like oxygen.

"Well," Sakura says, blinking up at him, "You should definitely sign up for the pyrotechnics at the winter festival."

When he chuckles, she pretends to be insulted. "What? I'm serious!"

"I'm sure you are," he murmurs, a corner of his mouth quirked. She grins.

"So, where to next, Captain?"

Sasuke tilts his head, rolling ideas inside his mind, thinking of the places he'd want her to see- of the parts of him that he wants to show her. Because in all his years of traveling, he hadn't been able to come to peace with all the things he had done, of the flesh he had pierced into and the limbs he had torn apart. But back in Rain, seeing her light up even the most morbid of places, he had finally understood: he needed to change the emotions linked to those sites, to take the anger associated with all those places and replace it with something warmer. Something brighter. Something closer to home.

"Serpent's pool," looking down at her again, he breathes. "We could go there."

"What's there, other than the obvious?"

Rubbing his forehead against her hair, he says, "You'll see when you get there."

Sakura closes her eyes and relaxes against him. Outside, the sun sets on the Valley of the End.

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**Review my lovelies.**


	20. t

**Well. **

**University sucks. **

**Prompt: Magnets, by Disclosure ft. Lorde.**

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**t.**

"So, this is where you..?" she leaves the question hanging, peering up at him from under her fringe, one eyebrow up. Sasuke chews on his lips and concludes that sometimes, it's okay to keep secrets.

"Yeah."

Unsated, she licks her bottom lip and tries again. "So like, he's seen you, when you were, you know,_ busy_?"

His eyes twitch with something close to embarrassment and shame and he closes them in defeat. "Yeah."

Sakura bursts out laughing, arms wrapped around her middle, her voice echoing off the gray walls of the cave and reverberating from the surface of the spring. Sasuke groans and feels the tips of his ears burn. Up above, water tips from the edges of the jagged rocks and drips down over their noses and hair. Sasuke hopes for the steam to mask his face and swallow him whole.

Rubbing the tears from the corners of her eyes, Sakura grins, one hand perched on the curve of her waist, hips tilted to one side to add to the arch of her tiny form. Sasuke imagines running his hands over her skin and blames the heat for the turn his thoughts have taken.

"If that wasn't an indication that Orochimaru had weird intentions, I don't know what is," she laughs again, stifling a giggle when he turns and tries to glare at her, trying to be angry but miserably failing all the same like he has been failing for some time now. In the end he accepts that all attempts to be angry with his fire-cracker wife are futile and that he should give up while he has a chance. Not that it prevents his lips from jutting out in a hopelessly childish frown, a sulking six year old with his bottom lip dragging across the floor.

"Oh my God Sasuke-kun, are you pouting?"

Mortified, he slaps his gloved hand over his face and turns his back to her as she falls into another laughing fit, eyes sealed to the corners, cheeks glowing with the humidity and hilarity, hands in her hair.

He contemplates transporting himself out of the jaded cave with its multiple regenerative pools and snake carvings and hiding under a random rock till the blood resumed circulation in parts of him that were specially _not_ _his face_ and he got a semblance of his dignity back, but he doubts something like dignity can be restored no matter how many miracle pools it is doused under, and deduces that life is simply cruel and that fate has a distorted sense of humor. So burning with the humiliation and mortification, he watches his self-respect seep through his fingers and jump out the window and wishes he had made more sensible decisions as a teenager, ones that did not involve_ letting grown men watch him go naked into a glowing brew of warm water_. The memory makes his mouth taste of tar and all things bitter and wrong.

Still blenching, lips pulled flat, he breathes hard through his nose and opens his eyes when she tugs as his cloak. Glancing at her from one half-lidded eye, he feels this sudden urge to pull her close and trace the rivets of moisture across her pink cheeks just to turn the tables and get even. Not that he thinks it would count as getting even, but the thought gives him support just the same.

It works, till she says, "Wait till I tell Naruto of this."

Sasuke hears all thoughts crashing to a halt inside his mind and gawks at her. "No," his voice ends up rugged, slightly shrilled at the prospect of the blonde knowing. "_You cannot. Absolutely not._"

"Yeah?" an eyebrow perched, lips twisted to a smirk, she sounds too smug for his liking, "I think he deserves to know that while he was searching the continent for his best friend, said best friend was busy letting age old pedo-"

Sasuke does something he thought he'd never have to resort to: he kisses his wife to disrupt her train of thought. And as the immature notion of getting even blips in his mind, he nips at her bottom lip as he pulls back and smirks when she blinks back, eyes slightly wide, a little confused and perhaps a little surprised.

Still blinking, she looks up at him, hands fisted in his cloak that neither of them had noticed before. "I can't believe you did that."

Sensing that the balance of power had been restored in his side, he gloats, "Why, do you want me to that again?"

Sakura opens her mouth, then closes it and tries again but the words die on her tongue and she's left probing the corners of her mouth for her voice, face titled a little to the side as she plucked her lips and puckered her eyebrows. Amused by the animated display of emotions on her face, Sasuke taps her chin and suggests, "Perhaps some things are better kept only between the people involved."

"Yes, I suppose," her voice sounds far off, and Sasuke imagines how her inner warrior must be conflicted with the thought of being silenced by a man with something as simple as tapping a pressure point on her lips. Not that intimacy has ever been anything but sacred between them, because Sasuke knows that the words left unsaid and unheard between them seep through their enjoined fingers and whisper on their skin. And he likes the simplicity of that understanding, knowing that she knows and listens to what his soul wants her to know. So Sasuke pulls his wife close, kisses her forehead, feels her lashes tickle his chin and promises to be a better man, one that will make sensible decisions that don't come to bite him in the future.

"So, I can still tell Ino, right?"

He sighs. "Just let it go."

Her responding giggle is muffled by his cloak.

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**So, humor: yes, or no?**

**Long chapters deserve reviews.**


	21. u

**If anyone thinks university means more time to write, I am telling you now, it is a big L.I.E. Likes, honestly. It sucks.**

**Prompt: Outro, by Stephen.**

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**u.**

In the old mining town, Sasuke looks up at the clouded sky and sighs. His breath condenses in front of him like white mist, weaving in the air. Beside him, Sakura shuffles deeper into her coat, blinking the snowflakes out of her lashes.

"Is it always this cold here?" she asks. Sasuke pulls her under his arm and she leans into him, nudging her face in his side. Sasuke's lips tilt upward at one corner.

"Mostly."

The market is almost empty. Very few people dare to venture out in the frostbite.

A group of children rush past them then, their red scarves dancing in the air, feet shuffling on the damp cobble-stones, their giggles floating like oxygen. Sasuke is suddenly reminded of the dead boy in the ditch, his lungs choked in the rain, eyes bloodshot, mouth contorted in a scream. His eyes had been black, not red.

Sakura looks back at the running children and glances up at him through her lashes. He tries to hide his grimace behind his hair.

"You know," she says, lacing her hands in his, "they say if you close your eyes and listen closely, you can hear their laughter in the snow."

To demonstrate, she seals her eyes shut. Her fingers squeeze his. He squeezes back. Her smile lightens some of the lead in his chest.

"Come on," he whispers, watching as the air clouded in her face. "We should get to someplace warm."

She nods solemnly. "Yes, please, before my fingers fall off."

Sasuke piques an eyebrow. "I think that's a bit of an exaggeration."

She peaks at him from one eye and says, "Not if your hands get abnormally cold like mine."

Sasuke laughs a short, choppy laugh. His voice comes out chaffed, like a silent chuckle. Sakura tugs on their joined hands and walks ahead.

Sasuke follows, glancing at the blue veins that peek at him from under her sleeve.

He wonders how long he can run from the wolves that keep chasing after him, and for how long. The ruminations circle his lungs and occupy his mind like a plague, refusing to dissipate. He should have saved that boy. He should have gotten to him first, but he had been too slow, too late. And it reminds of his own failures, of the desperation that chews his lungs and poisons his veins every time he tries to remember the life he had been stripped off, and of another life that he threw away, so callously, like it didn't matter. Like it wasn't supposed to matter.

Sometimes, when its dead at night and he can't see his hands, he wonders what had blinded him more: his anger, or his fears. And sometimes when he's alone in their home and shuffling under the anemic sunlight, he understands that it was he who ruined it all for himself. The blood that he splattered on his hands had been like a splash of crimson on a white canvas, embedded in the grid, stubborn and dirty; time had ignited the spark that burned everything to the ground and twisted the words of history. He had just chosen to be blind to it all.

Sakura tilts her head and looks at him, questioning.

He looks back at her hands and sees the pattern emerging. A crystal in the snow. It makes him sad.

He wonders how long he can depend on her to bring him back to the surface every time he jumped into the dark waters. He wonders if it's selfish to depend on her forever.

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**Review. Please. Tell me if i still have it after six month rut.**


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